Is the early game supposed to suck this badly?

If you want Certs, go engineer. Get your ammo box maxed out. Find firefight. Spam ammo box.
Max out your wrench.
Buy sunderer. Get repair maxed out on sundae. Find Zerg, roll close to but not right behind vehicle column.
Stack Certs, buy aa gun for sundae. Kill air. Eventually, you will figure out how and where to deploy it for spawn points.

You'll be cert full by June.

I just figured out somethng interesting. Vanu weapons aren't complete piles of garbage like NC weapons are. I made a new account so I could get the beginning certs back, and it turns out Vanu LA fits my playstyle pretty well.

WHAT SERVER?

and dont knock those NC weapons, those that are good with them are super deadly with those dps's . .
Vanu weapons have their.. bonuses, but drawbacks in other areas.

i played LA for most of my first year, and though i did and do love it ive found theres a Lot to offer with the other classes, and most of my playtime goes elsewhere, excepting when theres a fat sundy to pop, or in some of the more vertical hexs. and lets not forget spawn beacon placement..

if youre on Emerald add me, you can ride in my maggy or whatever. i guarantee just tagging along youll get kills, get killed, make certs, and most importantly have some fun. a lot of this game is getting put in the right place at the right time with the right tool and a bit of help. i mean im not master either in SPM or KD but im almost always in the thick of it popping heads or tanks, lit up like a moron and having a blast

Most of these points (nearly all) are very good.

My biggest tip?

Aim down sights, and learn to do so as much as possible.

This isn't CoD or Battlefield where hip-firing can kill a bunch of people at nearly any range with near pin-point accuracy. The weapons in this game have bloom, so you will become much less accurate at a very fast rate if you just hipfire. This was my biggest problem starting as NC, I tried just hip-firing with the Gauss SAW. I'd miss guys that were literally less than five meters away.

That's part of the reason why my K/D at one point was between 0.3 and 0.5, respectively. I've clawed my way up as best I can from then, but that was from a long time of trying to hipfire.

Friends don't let friends hipfire.

Opinions vary. Both from new players and old players. Some think it's great, some think it's pure hell.

For myself (an old player since launch), I lean toward the "pure hell" to describe the early game (at least for F2P early game). Especially if you have no way (old player friends, helpful Outfit, have been a dedicated forum reader, etc.) to navigate the cryptic learning curve of the game. I really like Planetside 2 more than almost any other game out right now, and I continue to enjoy playing it, but I don't recommend it to any of my friends anymore, and the handful of my friends that have tried PS2 (and all without any help from me) got burned out fast and left with bad memories.

For the right types of players, I think Planetside 2 can be a great game. But the early game is brutal and confusing on many levels to the uninitiated.

NOTE: I also don't know how the new Constructed Base and VP meta will change any of the above. I expect I'll know better once the dust on that meta settles.

I'm really enjoying LA and Combat Medic, but I have to ask, how useful are medics anyways? I mean, I'm sure they are useful, but how much more useful than a sundy are we?

get res nades and the nade belt, and you becoming the ***** Man. a room full of vanu just BACK instead of having 3-8 seconds deploy then however long trip across enemy territory to the point room.

you, single handly, can save the day on a cap/defense.

A good Medic with a maxed-out healing tool (or a well-timed revive grenade) can undo an entire enemy squad's work within half a minute. Their assault rifles are also some of the better weapons in the game if used properly.

When starting out, until you learn how battle tends to flow in the game, keep two basic tactics in mind: Stay near teammates (the more the better) and stay near cover. And if you see someone go down by themselves, don't rush out recklessly to revive them- I couldn't begin to tell you how many Medics I've killed who thought they were going to get that clutch revive on the guy I just dropped. You are worth more to your allies alive than dead.

(Also, when reviving, prioritize MAXes. They take longer but they can make a serious difference when they're back up and getting repaired by an on-the-ball Engineer.)

Yeah, I think I definitely have gotten over the "kill kill kill why am I not killing anything" mentality. I'm pretty much prioritizing saving teammates and having fun with it at the same time. I've been playing medic pretty much all day. I read that rez grenades are pretty situational, but if they are actually really good, I think I'll spec into them with the grenade belt.

Thanks for the tips everyone. I just wanted to make sure that the Medic was actually super useful, instead of the thing that pros tell newbies are super useful to give them something to do. Don't wanna waste my time when I could actually spend time benefiting the team somehow =P

It really depends on the kind of engagements you're involved in.

As The Rogue Wolf and Moridin6 covered, Medic can be hugely important within dedicated Infantry gameplay. Especially within a hardcore organized group. At the high end of PS2's current hardcore meta, players do a lot of Pinpoint Rapid Infantry Movement, literally just dropping (Gal, Beacon, etc.) a bunch of Infantry on a Cap Point and then using Medics to keep them on Cap until it flips, then moving them directly to the next point needed.

While in other engagements, Medic will just play as a weak Shock Troop (outclassed by HA, etc.) with spotty moments of Revive or Heal here and there. And for still other engagement types, Medic won't really be able to contribute unless they are in a Vehicle (and they are probably never the ideal driver/pilot Class for any Vehicle). Both these types of engagements are fairly common in casual play.

I rarely play hardcore organized play. And I jump from Class to Class as needed. And for me I almost never use (or have need to use) the Medic.

I've been making sure not to keep myself on Medic if there's no need for him, mostly switching to LA and trying to get in positions where I can surprise troops when they get tunnel vision, like when they keep going the same path to try to take out our Sundies. When the zerg rush starts up, I switch to Medic right away and try to keep a group of people alive at a time.